A Match Made In
by Panamint
Summary: Dick and Roy pretend to be in love to solve a case. Wally... just gets in the way.
1. An Early Frost

_**A Match Made in…**_

**DISCLAIMER: Have you ever read a comic book where Dick Grayson suffers from an eating disorder, the Titans use Speedy as a piñata, and Batman actually acts like a human being? No? Then I don't own them.**

**Also, MAJOR thanks to my sister Lihau for helping me hammer out the plot for this sucker. Enjoy! Hopefully you'll be able to understand who's talking down there...**

* * *

"YOU WANT ME TO _WHAT!!_"

"I know it sounds a little weird, but—"

"A _little_ weird?! Ha! It sounds downright _nutty!_"

"—but it's the only way we can stop him. Obviously I can't do this alone, and having Mr. Queen do it with me would be… uh…"

"Yuck! Geez, Wonder Boy! That's gross!"

"My point exactly."

"Man, now I'm never gonna get to sleep tonight…"

"Are you going to help me or not?"

"…Well… hey! What about Donna? She's a princess, so she's gotta be _loaded_."

"She's off-planet with Wonder Woman. I don't know when she's coming back."

"…Uh… well, Wally can do it, can't he?"

"No. He's not poor, but he's not rich, either. We need somebody with a lot of money for this one. Which is why I'm asking you instead of Barbara."

"Alright, alright… can't Gillhead do anything?"

"_Aqualad_ is not an option because there's too much of a risk that he'd be stranded on land for more than an hour. I don't want anybody getting killed on this mission."

"Yeah, well, if Ollie ever finds out about this, we'll see who's gettin' killed…"

"I'll talk to him for you, explain things. I'm sure he'll understand when he hears that—"

"'Understand'? Are we talking about the same Ollie here?"

"Speedy, come on. I… need your help. Please."

"Well if you expect me to do this for free, you're _really _off your rocker."

"I'll loan you the R-Cycle for a week."

"Darling!!"

"Terrific. Just tone it down a little. Now listen—for the past few weeks, Mr. Freeze has been targeting wealthy, high-profile couples throughout the U.S. He freezes one partner in the couple—male or female, doesn't matter—with some new kinds of Creon he has developed, kinds that can't be melted with heat or any type of chemical that's worked on previous freezing victims. He only delivers the appropriate reagent once the remaining partner has coughed up five hundred thousand dollars. He's done this at least four times already."

"Yeah, you mentioned that, sweetie. And I'm beginning to see where _we _fit in."

"Yeah. We go around pretending to be an 'item'—and making sure everybody in the country knows about it—so, hopefully, Freeze will target _us_, and Batman will be able to catch him before he harms anyone else."

"But what happens if he manages to freeze one of us—namely _me_—before we stop him?"

"Then Batman and whoever's left will ambush him while the money is being delivered."

"Hmmm… I don't know… sounds a little too risky for—"

"R-Cycle for a week?"

"Er, what was it you wanted me to do, babe?"

"That's better. Do me one favor?"

"_Anything_, Rob. _Anything_."

"Well, I don't want any of the other Titans seeing us together and thinking we've gone off the deep end. Send a few e-mails to let them know what's going on, will you?"

"If you say so."

_For the benefit of the readers, we will mention that Roy spent about half an hour on the computer that night, typing and retyping the perfect e-mail messages. Normally, he would have completed all three e-mails in under a minute, probably with the aide of chat speak and no punctuation, period. But… he really wanted the R-Cycle. So he made sure they came out looking like they'd been written by someone who'd been speaking English for more than three days._

_There was just one problem._

_He forgot to send them._

* * *

**Yeah. Betcha didn't see THAT coming. Sorry for the shortness, it just turned out that way. All I really wanted to do here was make sure everybody understood exactly why Dick and Roy are doin' what they're doin'.**


	2. Brain Freeze

_**A Match Made in…**_

**Well, here I am with chapter two! By the way, I have a new way of replying to reviews--if you log in and you allow PMs, then you'll get a personalized reply. If you just leave your e-mail address, I probably won't use it because I don't have my own e-mail address and I try to use my mom's as little as possible. That doesn't mean I don't appreciate the feedback, though! I love all my reviewers equally!! (huggles)**

**Oh, and because I was asked, no, this is not slash. Trust me, you wouldn't want me writing slash. I tend to make things sappy as it is, can you imagine if I tried to write something romantic? I'd probably make MYSELF gag. -.-**

* * *

_The next week, in Central City, Missouri…_

It was 4:59 on a Tuesday morning. A rather bleary-eyed Barry Allen was doing something that could, by some stretch of the imagination, be called cooking. He had been ordered to get to work a little earlier that morning and, not wanting to wake his wife up at such a disgusting hour, had decided to make breakfast on his own. Unfortunately, it's kind of hard to cook when your eyes are half-closed.

Seven burnt pancakes, a ruined waffle iron, two cracked glasses and one great big general disaster area later, Barry finally settled on a bowl of cold cereal. Without the milk. Because the milk carton had decided to systematically collapse in his hand and spill its contents all over the floor.

And before he could even sit down to eat, he heard the front door opening.

Great. They had burglars. As if things weren't bad enough. And hadn't that door been _locked_ when they went to bed last night?

The day improved considerably when the 'burglar' turned out to be his nephew-by-marriage and crime-fighting sidekick.

Which explained why the door was unlocked. The fifteen-year-old Nebraskan had been given a key to the Allen residence long ago (well, actually he'd been given _twelve_ keys over the course of the past five years because most of them ended up lost one way or another).

"Wally! What are you doing here?" Barry greeted.

"Nice to see you, too," the red-head grinned a little. "Actually, I just finished working on a Titans' case in St. Louis and wondered if I could sleep here for a while. I'm way too tired to run all the way back to Blue Valley just yet. That okay?"

"Of course it is. That's what we converted the sunroom into a bedroom for. Stay as long as you like, but I've got to be at S.T.A.R. Labs in a few minutes."

"Thanks. I'm just gonna grab some breakfast first…"

"Um…"

"AGH! UNCLE BARRY! WE'VE BEEN—!"

Barry didn't usually approve of using his superspeed for anything other than fighting super-villains, but he was more than glad to make an exception in this case. In under a second, he'd leapt up from the table, ran over to his panicking nephew and placed his hand firmly over Wally's mouth.

"Don't shout—you'll wake up your aunt!" Barry ordered, finally releasing the boy's mouth.

"But we've been _robbed!_" Wally whispered in despair. "I hope they didn't steal the cheesecake…"

"Actually, I—"

There Barry stopped short. He'd been planning on telling Wally the truth, but then decided it was probably better to just let him believe the mess had been created by robbers. Him… and Iris, too.

Besides, Wally wasn't paying attention to him anymore. He was too busy checking to see if the cheesecake had been spared.

It had, since Barry wasn't about to have a fattening dessert for _breakfast_. His nephew, however, apparently had different ideas about what constituted a good breakfast and pulled the whole darn cake out of the fridge. Then he grabbed a fork that had been left on the counter and headed to his room.

"Have a good day at work, Uncle Barry!" Wally said cheerfully, snatching the newspaper off the dining room table on his way out.

Barry just sighed. Abandoning the idea of eating a decent breakfast (or any kind of breakfast), the chemist just left for work. He'd call Iris to 'explain' about the kitchen later.

--

Wally shut the door to his little room and placed the plate of cheesecake down onto his bed. The fork had been rammed halfway into the middle of it so that the boy would have a free hand to take the paper with. He flopped onto his stomach and, taking a heaping forkful of cheesecake, flipped through the newspaper to find the comic page. After seeing what that nut Brother Blood had tried to do to the St. Louis populace, he could really use a laugh.

He never made it to the comics.

About three pages before the colorful cartoons were printed, Wally came across the gossip column. He didn't usually bother with that, mostly out of support for his two closest friends, Roy Harper and Dick Grayson. Both boys were tabloid staples; both detested the way the gossip columnists always stretched the truth and made them look pompous, foolish or just plain stupid. Generally all three.

So Wally avoided the gossip columns.

But a ginormous full-color photograph of the aforementioned close friends waltzing together at a high-society ball was pretty dang hard to avoid.

Wait, _what?_

Wally sputtered on his cheesecake in disbelief. He _had_ to be seeing things. It must be the early hour… the stress of fighting crime… the fact that he hadn't eaten for almost an hour now… that must be it. His eyes were playing tricks on him. Yeah, that was it. His eyes were playing tricks on him.

…

Then again, maybe not.

He tore his eyes away from photo and reluctantly read the caption:

_Above: Sixteen-year-old Roy Harper (right) leads the first of what turned out to be many dances with new boyfriend Dick Grayson at a charity ball last night in Gotham City. When asked about their budding romance, both boys stated that their legal guardians are fully aware and approve of their relationship._

And now they were actually answering the reporters' questions?! As if things couldn't get any weirder…

--

Kid Flash watched the expression on Aqualad's face change as the Atlantean teen read the newspaper that his speedster teammate had shoved in his face upon rather abruptly reentering the Tower. Aqualad had thought that Kid Flash was going to his uncle's house to get some well-earned rest after the Blood case, but apparently, he'd been grossly misinformed.

The speedster bounced on his toes anxiously, waiting for Aqualad to comment on the bizarre photograph he'd been looking at for at least… like… five seconds already.

"You're right, Kid Flash, this _is_ strange," Aqualad commented. "If I know Dick, he would _never_ let Roy lead."

"I…"

Kid Flash grabbed the photo to take a closer look. Then he realized what he was doing and turned on the snickering Aqualad.

"Come ON, Fish Stick, this is serious!!"

"No, it's not," the Atlantean replied, attempting to be the nice, patient kid he was famous for being. "I am sure it's just a practical joke of some sort. This photograph has probably been doctored, and I'm sure Roy and Dick never made any comments like those."

The red-head sighed, disgusted with himself.

"What was I thinking? Of _course_ it's doctored…!" he declared aloud, more for his own benefit than for Aqualad's. Kid Flash jogged over to the Tower's enormous computer at a normal speed and began to analyze the photograph.

Aqualad just rolled his eyes, thinking that Kid Flash jumped to conclusions faster than he could run to keep up with them. He decided to leave for the safety and relative sanity of his underwater home, but he bumped into Robin on his way out the door.

"Hey, Rob," Aqualad greeted. The Boy Wonder smiled back. Kid Flash's head jerked up at the sound of Robin's name, and he clambered away from the computer to question the Titans' leader.

"Wonder Boy!" the Flash's sidekick cried desperately, tripping over his own two feet on his way across the room. Robin stood by the door, giving Kid Flash a concerned look. The poor guy sure seemed frantic about _something_.

"Hey, Twinkletoes. Anything wrong?"

"You tell me."

Robin blinked in surprise as Kid Flash shoved the newspaper under his nose. Robin spent about half a second looking at the photo before, just as Kid Flash had hoped, he went completely ballistic.

"_Idiots!_ The complete _idiots!_"

"I agree."

"This is horrible! I swear, Kid Flash, I don't know _what_ those photographers were thinking! What are they trying to do here?!"

"You said it, dude."

"I mean, I _told_ them to get a clear picture! Does this look clear to you?"

"I—WHAT!!"

"When I say _clear_, I mean_ clear!_ You'd think professional photographers—of _all_ people—would know how to get a clear picture! Geez… you can barely even tell who it is!"

Robin stormed off with the paper, still growling to himself. Kid Flash, meanwhile, was still standing in the same spot with his mouth hanging open, staring at Robin's back as the fuming Boy Wonder stalked towards the sleeping quarters. He wanted to say something, but all that came out were high-pitched squeaks that could have attracted mice.

And suddenly, St. Louis wasn't looking so bad anymore.

--

Speedy had been quietly relaxing in his room in Titans' Tower when the sounds of clomping footsteps jarred him fully awake.

Next thing he knew, somebody was pounding on his door. Violently. Almost enough to leave a fist-shaped imprint in the stainless steel.

The Boy Bowman hurried to open the door before his apparently angry visitor either used the 'override lock' command or knocked down the door entirely.

The second the door was open, a red-faced Boy Wonder burst in, looking very, very ticked off.

"Okay, Bat-Breath, what happened?"

Too angry to form words, Robin slammed the newspaper into Speedy's chest, forcing the archer to take it before it fell to the floor.

"Oooh, nice picture! In color, too!"

"_Hello?! _Are you completely blind?" Robin promptly yelled at him. "This is too blurry to be any good—and Bruce, Barbara and Alfred all agree with me! Mr. Freeze could easily think this is just a doctored photo or a picture of a couple of random guys, and he's obviously not gonna touch either of us unless he's sure the other would be willing to dish out half a million!"

"So in other words, Phase One was a complete bust," Speedy concluded.

"'Fraid so, Arrow Boy."

Speedy made a disgusted noise and threw the newspaper onto the bed before plopping down next to it. It looked as if his chances of using the R-Cycle were getting slimmer with each passing second.

"Please tell me you have some brilliant back-up plan."

"I think we'd better just move on to Phase Two," Robin declared, rubbing his chin thoughtfully.

"…And that is?"

"There's this fancy new restaurant in Gotham called The Asahi."

"I beg your pardon!" Speedy gasped in feigned horror.

"Huh? Oh. Asahi. It's Japanese for, uh, 'morning sun' or something…"

"Japanese?! But I hate seafood…" the archer whined. "Can't we just drive through the local Taco Bell?"

"No. The Asahi opened only three days ago, so there's still a lot of publicity surrounding the place. We're almost _guaranteed _to be seen there!"

Speedy sighed in resignation. Robin noticed and began to feel a little guilty.

"If it's any consolation, I don't like seafood, either. Not since the Joker tried to feed me to his giant clam," Batman's sidekick commented, shuddering at the memory.

"Guess we'll be eating a lot of noodles tomorrow evening, then, huh?"

Robin smirked.

"Hey, Robbie, there's something I've been meaning to ask you… who's the girl in this relationship?"

Robin's smirk rapidly turned into a death glare.

"'Cause I'm not doing this anymore if I have to be the girl…"

The smirk came back so fast that it was too terrifying to be reassuring.

"Okay. You be the 'boy'," Robin agreed, a little too eagerly. "I just hope you've got deep pockets because you're paying for everything from now on!"

"Hey, wait a second! I didn't say anything about—"

"Oh, by the way, could you return that newspaper to the Kid before you go? I sort of swiped it from him. See you tonight, Bowhead—and you better wear something nice or I'll put you in a skirt. _Sayonara!_"

"But…!" Speedy yelled out the door. In a last-ditch attempt to get Robin's tail feathers back in there, the archer bellowed, "It's very fashionable to go Dutch nowadays!!"

Robin's laughter could be heard clear down the hall.

--

Five minutes later, Speedy found the Fastest Boy Alive sitting in the main room, staring out into space, not moving a muscle except for the occasional eye twitch. Even though it was unusual for Kid Flash to be so still, Speedy barely noticed. The other red-head always seemed a bit off his nut, anyway. Something had probably just pushed him over the edge.

"Hey, Fleetfeet. Rob asked me to return your newspaper."

When Kid Flash didn't respond, Speedy shrugged, tossed the paper down onto the couch and walked out whistling.

As soon as the archer was gone, Kid Flash snapped back to reality.

"Roy! Hey…! Oh, darn…"

He'd really wanted to talk to Speedy about the… photo… and Robin's odd reaction to it. But Kid Flash had been so deep in thought that he hadn't noticed Speedy's presence until it was too late.

Oh, well. He'd try calling Roy's place this evening.

That night, Wally dialed Roy's house at least half a dozen times before a very annoyed Oliver Queen finally unplugged his phone (all ten of them). The only thing Wally had managed to discover was that Roy was 'out' for the evening and that Ollie had absolutely no idea where "that trouble-makin' hoodlum" was.

With a sigh, Wally finally gave up and went to bed.

--

_Meanwhile, somewhere just inside the Gotham City limits…_

It was cold in that hallway, desperately cold. The frigid temperatures were mostly caused by the old building's broken heating system, though the many cracked windows contributed substantially by allowing the bitter February winds to sweep freely through.

All of which was fine with the building's current illegal resident.

But to his henchman…

The youngish blond man shivered violently as he strode briskly down the cold hallway, clutching the newspaper in his hands even tighter than before. He really would have preferred being at home in bed about now, but when you had such a… cold-hearted… man for a boss, you had to make sure you stayed in his good graces. Or else.

The man approached a flight of stairs and jogged down them, heading for the basement, the coldest part of the abandoned edifice. He shivered harder, wishing he'd put his hat and gloves on before rushing off to deliver this rather intriguing news to his boss.

And there he was, sitting stiffly in a chair facing the stairs, as if he had anticipated the henchman's unannounced visit.

"I'm sorry to disturb you, sir," the blond man began apprehensively, "but I saw this in today's paper and thought it would be of interest to you."

Wordlessly, a white-gloved hand reached out. The blond immediately handed over the newspaper.

"Page six, sir…"

The flipping of pages, and then silence as cool gray eyes focused in on the large photograph in the center of the page.

"Keep an eye on them, Mr. Dempsey," a low, almost mechanical voice spoke to the shivering blond. "This may be just what we are looking for."

* * *

**Once again, thankies go to Lihau. She gave me the little Japanese lesson up there.**

**In Barry's defense, I really don't know how well he can cook. I would imagine he's a better chef than I made him here, just because he needs to eat a lot as a speedster and would probably starve to death if he couldn't at least whip up an omelet or something. (shrug) Oh well. Virtual Bat-shaped cookies go to whoever spots the _Batman _reference up there. Don't worry, though, Barry didn't make the cookies. ;)**


	3. A Chilly Evening

**_A Match Made in…_**

**Hurray for reviews! I got six last chapter! (beams) And every single one of them was much appreciated, I assure you. ****Okay, this chapter is... pretty long... so fasten your seatbelts and enjoy the next 3700 words of this story!**

**Ah yes, and big thankies go to Lihau once again for thinking of the name of the first chapter. Ya know, maybe I oughtta move this story to her account. She's been doing more work on it than I have... -.-**

* * *

The Asahi was in a nice little building in a nice little part of town. It was located on the corner of Robinson Avenue and Sprang Street. The sign on the front of the building was softly lit and had the name of the restaurant as well as a picture of the sun rising up from behind a flat bit of ground with a single tree on it. The sectioned front windows revealed a series of long, low tables made of dark wood. Plush, navy blue cushions and different colored blankets surrounded each table, the walls were painted gold and the floor was of a light-colored wood.

Roy thought it was an interesting place.

He would have preferred the local Taco Bell.

"You couldn't have picked a more romantic-looking place?" the red-head grumbled. "This isn't exactly screaming 'passionate love-making' to me."

"Roy. We're rich. We're not supposed to make _sense_. Now shut up and hold my hand."

Gulping noisily, Roy took the shorter boy's outstretched hand. Dick was the only person he knew who could make a romantic gesture like holding hands sound like a threat. But he eventually got enough of his courage back to ask, "Hey, why isn't Wayne doing this with some random girlfriend? He's rich, and any romance involving him is bound to be high-profile."

"Because he was Freeze's first victim, and we're not sure if he'd target the same guy twice," Dick explained. "We don't want to take any chances, so here we are. And don't worry if Freeze shows up: Batgirl's around here somewhere keeping an eye on things. Now let's go in—it's cold out here."

Well, he couldn't exactly argue with that. His ears were practically falling off. He really should have worn a hat.

Slowly, they entered The Asahi. A few heads turned at the sound of the door opening, and some of them practically stared at the pair as a pretty young hostess approached them. Out of habit, Roy prepared to put the moves on her. Dick gave him a warning look that was completely ignored.

"Hello, I am Yukiko," the hostess said with a pleasant smile. Roy smiled back. A little too pleasantly.

"Hel_lo_…_!_" the red-head said eagerly. Dick's glare intensified, and he squashed Roy's hand viciously as a painful reminder.

_This bites_… Roy thought, annoyed, as he winced at the squeeze. _The place is overflowing with hot chicks, and __**I'm**__ stuck holding hands with the __**Pun Master!!**_

Meanwhile, Yukiko continued, "Please, remove your shoes here, and I will take you to your table."

"Our shoes?" Roy asked in surprise. Yukiko was busy getting their menus, so he turned to the aforementioned Pun Master. "What, do we have to go through customs before we eat?"

"It's Japanese tradition, you idiot," Dick hissed back, already bending over to remove his footwear. "Now do it. And quit _flirting_ with her. You're with me, remember?"

"Okay. Now you're scaring me. And they'd better be careful with these shoes. They're genuine Italian leather—hundred dollar shoes!"

"Well, gee, shouting the worth of your shoes to the entire restaurant is guaranteed to _not_ get them stolen, Roy."

Roy froze in the act of untying his hundred-dollar Italian leather shoes and glanced around suspiciously, as if expecting someone to come charging at him to take his precious shoes.

The only person who approached them was Yukiko. She had two menus tucked under her arm. She also had some numbered tags on little bits of strings—undoubtedly to tie onto their shoes and coats so Roy and Dick could get them back; it was the same system used with people's things at fancy parties, as both boys knew well.

As soon as their shoes were taken care of, Dick and his 'boyfriend' followed Yukiko to an empty table. Unfortunately, Roy had a terrific view of the woman's… back end… from where he was, and Dick had to squeeze his hand four or five times before they made it to the table.

_Now my fingers are gonna be stuck this way…_

Yukiko handed them their menus, but Dick quickly said that they'd only need one.

"We'll share," he told her.

_Boy, this guy isn't missing a trick! _Roy thought in amazement as Yukiko withheld one of the menus. She gave them the tickets for their things and said that a waiter would be with them shortly. Both boys thanked her as she left.

"Quit _staring_ at her, Roy, or my motorcycle _stays_ mine," Dick growled.

"Okay, okay…" the archer mumbled, turning his attention to the rather unique table before them. It was low to the ground, as expected, but there seemed to be a blanket sandwiched in between the tabletop and the rest of it.

"What's this thing?" he wondered.

"It's a _kotatsu_," Dick replied with a touch more patience than he had used when explaining about the shoes. "It's a special kind of table with a heater attached to the bottom and a blanket to keep people warm during the winter months. It's sort of traditional…"

"You mean like the 'no-shoes' thing?"

"Yup."

Then they turned their attention to ordering. Roy had to lean way, _way_ over to be able to read the tiny black typing on the menu, making it look like they were cuddling together purposely. _That_ earned them some looks, but Roy just smiled briefly at the busybodies before attempting to read the menu again. Lucky for him, it wasn't just in Japanese, so he'd be able to avoid the surprisingly extensive number of dishes involving tofu, seaweed and octopus.

"_Fugu_… hey, I can't read what it says there. What's _fugu?_"

"It's pufferfish. And if you suddenly decide you like seafood after all and want to eat it, you better have brought a pen with you."

"…Why?"

"You'll need to sign a waiver first." Dick stared at Roy's blank expression and elaborated, "Long story short? If they prepare it the wrong way, you die."

Roy leapt about ten feet in the air at that bit of news and immediately scanned the list for something that wasn't life-threatening.

"I think I'm gonna have the _nikujaga_," Dick announced.

"…As_ appetizing _as that sounds… what else is there?"

That was the exact moment when another young woman, even prettier than Yukiko, approached the table. Her nametag said 'Aya' and her hair was in a ponytail, but the nametag and the hair were the _last_ places Roy was looking.

Aya seemed to notice that.

And didn't mind a bit.

Dick, however, did.

"Have you decided what you want to drink?" Aya asked, looking directly at Roy with a smile even pleasanter than the one Yukiko had been wearing.

"I'll have the, uh…" Roy quickly scanned the list in the menu. Sensing the red-head's confusion, Dick jumped in with his own order of a blended tea drink called _jurokucha_. Roy eventually settled for a glass of water, mostly because that was the only thing he was sure he could pronounce (besides _sake_, but that would be illegal).

"One cup of _jurokucha_, and one glass of water," the waitress repeated. She wasn't really looking at the notepad where she had been absentmindedly scribbling their orders. Or whatever it was she'd been scribbling. "I'll be back soon to take your orders."

Aya and Roy stared at each other for a beat longer before the dark-haired woman slowly turned and headed for the kitchen. Roy turned his head to follow Aya's path, a dreamy smile plastered onto his face… until he ended up face to face with his rather irate date.

Embarrassed, Roy quickly turned around on his cushion and played with his chopsticks.

Dick gave him a dark look and grumbled, "Just wait'll Bruce gets here and finds out you've been flirting with every female in the—why, _Bruce_, what brings _you_ here??"

Roy's head jerked up in panic, hoping that Dick was just bluffing to scare him into behaving. That probably would have worked… except Dick wasn't bluffing.

_And how'd the birdbrain know Wayne would be here, anyway?_

Several more heads turned at the sight of the billionaire—Roy figured it was because the guy was actually _smiling_. That alone was worth staring at, but with Wayne, Wayne's ward and a stud like himself all in one place, Roy wasn't surprised when a few paparazzi from outside began snapping photos of them through the window.

Meanwhile, Bruce completely ignored the flashing bulbs behind him and answered Dick's question, "Well, I was just passing by and saw you two through the window…"

"Spying, huh?" Dick replied with a mischievous grin.

"Shamelessly. Mind if I join you for a minute?"

As if things couldn't get any weirder. Here he thought that this was supposed to be a 'romantic' dinner, and now Dick was letting his _legal guardian_ join them?!

Bruce sat on a spare cushion as Aya returned with their drinks. She asked Bruce if he wanted something as well, but he politely declined the offer, so she took the boys' orders instead. Dick asked for the aforementioned _nikujaga_, and Roy finally settled on a deep-fried pork dish called _tonkatsu_.

As soon as Aya was out of earshot, Bruce leaned closer.

"How's it going?" he questioned, voice low.

"It'd be going better if Roy wasn't making goo-goo eyes at everybody except me," Dick grumbled under his breath.

Both Bruce and Dick turned to glare at Roy, who was… grinning stupidly and reading a piece of paper that had been tucked under his water glass.

Quicker than lightning, Dick snatched it away from him, read the paper and glared some more.

"I don't believe this. That waitress knew you for all of a minute and she's already given you her _phone number?!_"

"That's not a phone number! That's a, uh, a… a… oh shoot."

"Gesundheit," said Dick.

"Look, Harper," Wayne ground out. The creepy smile was long gone, making him look a lot more serious and a lot… _less_ creepy, actually. "I know you're not enjoying this. Dick and I are about as thrilled about this as you are, but unless a major lead turns up out of the blue, it's the only chance we have at catching Freeze. Do _not_ mess this up or someone could get _killed_. Do you understand me?"

Roy nodded. As much as he hated pretending to be in love with Dick (even if the jerk _was_ his best friend, supposedly), he was still a crime-fighter. It was his job to protect people… even if it meant leaving Aya's phone number in Grayson's custody.

Besides, he _really_ liked the R-Cycle.

"Good."

With that, Wayne finally stood to leave.

"You boys enjoy your evening," he said in a normally-pitched voice. "Just be back by eleven, okay, Dick?"

"Okay."

"You know, you two picked a nice place. Quiet, out-of-the-way, nice atmosphere…" Returning to his covert whispering spy-type voice, Wayne added softly, "No chairs to get in the way if you wanted to cuddle up to someone…"

Dick's eyes lit up.

"Good idea!"

"It is?!" Roy said, horrified. "Um, I mean, yeah. Right. Brilliant."

--

_The next morning, in Kid Flash's bedroom at the Titans' Tower…_

The Flash's trusty sidekick woke up at about ten o'clock that sunny Sunday morning to make up for all the rest he'd missed the past couple of days. He had actually wanted to stay asleep even longer—maybe until noon like those rich people in the movies—but his stomach had different ideas.

With a yawn, Wally got up and put on some casual clothes. As he slipped into his jeans, he vaguely wondered if Robin had regained his senses since yesterday. Wally certainly hoped so. He liked a good practical joke as much as the next person, but he was really beginning to get scared now.

The first thing that caught Wally's attention when he entered the kitchen was the piece of paper on the refrigerator door. The note was held in place by a magnet shaped like Barney the dinosaur that totally did _not _belong to Wally. He got closer and read:

_Hey Titans!_

_The restaurant Speedy and I went to last night was really good, so we brought some leftovers for everyone to try. It's Japanese stuff—there's beef and potato stew in the white container, deep-fried pork in the blue container, some Japanese sponge cake things on the metal tray, and poisonous pufferfish in the freezer (that last one was a joke to prove to certain skeptical speedsters I know that I __do too__ have a sense of humor. Ha, ha.) We also have a truckload of white rice and miso soup, if anyone's interested. Please say you are. Because I never want to see either one ever again. The miso soup should be of special interest to Aqualad because it has seaweed in it. I found that out the hard way. Enjoy, fellas._

—_R_

_P.S. The first person to find this message (a.k.a. YOU) should tell the others about the food, but please take this paper and shove it down the garbage disposal. Or throw it out an airlock at the Satellite. Whatever. Just make sure Speedy doesn't get it because there's some random waitress's phone number on the back of here; it's the only way I could think to hide it from him. Speedy's mine until further notice, so I don't want him making dates with random waitresses._

Wally snatched the message off the fridge and looked at the back. Sure enough, there were seven digits written there as well as the words 'Aya Nishi' in that annoyingly curly almost-illegible-because-it-was-so-neat writing that females used because they thought it looked cute. Must be the random waitress's name, Wally figured.

That was when it clicked. Loudly.

Turning the paper over again, Wally reread the letter. Or, more specifically, the parts where Robin had talked about going to a restaurant with _Speedy_. And that Speedy was_ his_.

"You're dating SPEEDY?!" Wally howled at the paper and shaking it vigorously. The paper didn't answer, so Wally continued yelling, "How can you be dating SPEEDY! He's a total DORK!! What is wrong with you?! I thought you had brains!! And since when are you two gay, anyway?!"

The paper still didn't talk, so Wally crumpled it up ferociously and threw it into the garbage can. Feeling somewhat satisfied and still hungry, he pulled the blue container out of the fridge along with a container of white rice, per Robin's request. It was actually pretty good, and he took his spoils over to the computer to play a few games online. Maybe it would distract him from this rather disconcerting mess.

Once again, he didn't quite make it. Robin had programmed all the computers in the Tower to each go to different news sites whenever someone logged onto the internet. And before he could plug in the name of his website, another picture caught his attention.

Wally hastily clicked on the corresponding article and…

"I don't _believe _this…"

The headline basically said what Wally already knew—that Dick and Roy had spent last evening at a Japanese restaurant.

It was the picture that had caught him off guard.

The two boys were sitting at one of those chibi Japanese tables with a sky blue blanket tucked around them. And Dick was practically in Roy's lap. And they were making goo-goo eyes at each other. There was also a rather ticked off waitress with a ponytail in the background, but Wally was too busy staring at his supposedly sane friends to notice.

"What is going _on_ here?" the speedster muttered, confused. "If they wanna go out together, then fine… but they don't have to act all _weird_ about it!"

The door opened, and Wally logged off the same instant. For some reason, he felt dirty looking at that picture and didn't want anybody else finding out what he'd been up to.

The 'anybody else' turned out to be Wonder Girl.

Just about the _last _person Wally wanted to see.

It was fairly common knowledge (meaning that the entire superhero community knew about it) that Wonder Girl had feelings for Speedy—feelings that Wally had always thought Speedy returned. But now Roy was going out with Dick… had he told Donna? Did she know? Should he be the one to break it to the Amazon if she hadn't heard the news?

_Let's see… _Wally thought sarcastically. _Do I tell a girl with a super-lasso, enough strength to squash a rhinoceros and a really scary older sister that the guy she likes is seeing one of her friends and that they're both as straight as telephone cords… or let Speedy do it himself?_

_Yeah._

"Hey, Wondy!" Wally greeted her happily. "When did you get back?"

"Just this morning," replied Donna Troy, smiling back. "I know how Robin likes keeping track of where we all are, so I thought I'd come here right away to let him know that Diana and I have returned."

"Well, I think I'm the only one here right now…" Wally muttered as he scratched the back of his neck and glanced around the room, like he was searching for his other teammates. "But I'll be happy to tell him if I see him before you do."

"Thank you… what's that you're eating? It looks delicious…"

"Oh, this? It's pork, according to Wonder Boy. I think they did something weird to it, though. He picked it up at this Japanese restaurant he and Roy went to last night…"

"Really?" Donna said, raising an eyebrow. Wally managed to resist the urge to slap a hand over his stupid mouth… but he was still panicking on the inside.

_Okay. Waaaay too much information there, West…_

"I'm glad to hear that Robin has been keeping Speedy company while I was away," the girl declared. "Roy really does spend much too much time alone."

"He does? Oh… right… I guess he does…"

_Fat_ _lot you know._

"Do you mind if I share that pork with you? I haven't eaten Earth food since I don't know when!"

"Of course. Siddown. Then we can go find Robbie for ya…"

"And Speedy, too," Donna reminded him. Wally gulped at the funny look in her eyes as soon as she spoke the archer's name. "I really want to see him."

"Yeah…"

Wally gulped again.

He was in _big _trouble.

--

Meanwhile, Robbie and Speedy were congregating in the Boy Wonder's room, where several newspapers were laid out on the floor and open to the gossip pages. Robin's laptop was also on, and the two boys were crowded around the glowing screen, looking at multiple news sites at the same time.

Four out of five featured an article about their date at The Asahi.

"Enough publicity for ya, Bat Boy?" Speedy asked with a grin.

"Just about. Everything's going great," Robin asked. He was obviously in a good mood, so the Boy Bowman decided to say, "Hey, mind if I ask a question?"

"No. Doesn't mean I'll answer, of course, but ask away."

"What was the big idea of telling the papers that Ollie knew and approved of our relationship at the party last week? You never got the chance to tell Ollie _anything_ because he was out of the country until last night!"

"I had to tell them that. If Freeze thought there was any chance of us being broken up, he'd go target some other couple."

"Well… why did Wayne show up last night? Last time I checked, having your parental figure show up in the middle of dinner isn't romantic, if you don't mind my saying so."

"Yeah, I know," answered Robin, rolling his eyes a little. "But we needed a bit of insurance to make sure the paparazzi got lots of pictures of us, and that was the only way we could figure to do it subtly."

"Oh."

"Besides," Robin added, logging onto yet _another _news site and smirking triumphantly upon seeing the two of them on the front page, "we figured we'd have a little trouble with you in the beginning and wanted to make sure we kept you on the straight and narrow… well, on the narrow and off the _straight_, if you know what I mean."

"Yeah, I know what you mean. But that's the worst pun you've ever made."

"I try. Now listen close, I've got Phase Three all mapped out…"

--

_Meanwhile, back at that same building on the outskirts of Gotham…_

Dempsey stood behind his boss's chair and watched as Freeze scanned the webpage, absorbing the latest information on the apparent romance between two of the richest heirs in the country.

"Sure looks promising, doesn't it, Boss?"

"Perhaps," the other man admitted. "But they're young—only boys. I'm sure you were quite fickle with your 'love interests' at that age."

A somewhat boastful grin came to Dempsey's face at the memories his boss's simple statement brought back to him.

Freeze stood and paced the room as he continued to reason, "This affair of theirs could end as quickly as it started. And while I highly doubt that either one of them would refuse to pay my ransom even if they _did_ end the relationship… it is much more fun watching the desperate looks on their faces when they hand over the money and beg for their lovers' pathetic lives.

"Tell the men to wait a little longer, Dempsey. In the meantime, continue to watch the Maypont couple, in case Grayson and Harper don't turn out the way we hope."

* * *

**Hmmm, nobody got the Bat-reference in the last chapter? Oh well--more cookies for me!! Muahahahaha!! (munches cookie) Oh, it's cold. All flames will be used to heat up these cookies so we can save money on the gas bills!**


	4. Cold Feet

_**A Match Made in…**_

**This chapter is gonna be a little bit evil... and a lot long. Sorry, these chapters just refuse to end!! And special thankies to all my wonderful reviewers! You're all loved very much. BTW, I own Roy's 'friends'. I don't usually like making up friends for the characters any more, but this was necessary. I'm sure you'll all agree...**

**Let the madness continue!**

* * *

_Three o'clock the next afternoon at the largest mall in Star City…_

Dick Grayson strode confidently into the bustling shopping center, smiling almost wickedly at the thought of the day's plans. This might actually turn out to be fun!

"Well, Roy, ready to… Roy?"

The smile vanished under a concerned expression as Dick looked around for his missing buddy. After a few moments of glancing around, the dark-haired teen spotted Roy trying to sneak out the mall doors.

Dick shot a murderous glare in Roy's direction. Even though Roy was facing the opposite direction, Roy saw the reflection of Dick's evil glare in the glass doors and slunk back to his reluctant position beside the Bat's sidekick.

"You are _this _close to losing the bike, buster," Dick growled through gritted teeth.

"Yeah, well, you never mentioned that part of the plan was spending all my money in one lousy afternoon. And on _you_, of all people!!"

"Not my fault, Harper. You wanted to be the guy in the relationship, and now you are. Which means you pay for everything."

"You sure you're not just cheap?"

"Quit whining."

"But did you see the tab on last night's dinner date?! That Asahi place really did a number on my wallet, and now you expect me to wander around a stupid mall all afternoon buying whatever _you_ want?! That's insane!"

"I promised to reimburse you for the dinner, didn't I?"

"That's not the point! If we're _both_ rich, why can't you just buy stuff for yourself?"

Dick looked at him incredulously.

"Because that's not romantic? Duh? Now let's move—I have to be home by six, and I need a new coat! Come on!"

Grabbing Roy's arm, Dick gave him a firm pull, which started them both on what would turn out to be a _long_ afternoon.

The first store they visited, per Dick's request (a.k.a. command), was a store that sold leather goods. Very _expensive _leather goods. And of course the first thing Dick went for was a white designer jacket with a light brown faux fur collar—something he never would have done if Bruce had been the one footing the bill. But, considering what he'd been putting up with from Roy for the past few days, Dick figured he deserved a little something for himself.

Roy did not seem to agree.

He stared at Dick's choice, trying to hide the horror he felt.

"Can't you just get by with a scarf and a pair of gloves?"

Roy bought the jacket.

"But _you're_ carrying the bag!"

"Ever the romantic, aren't we, Casanova?"

The red-head turned to retort but lost his voice when Dick slipped his free hand into Roy's and forced a smile. He _really_ didn't want to be doing this… but he was a crime-fighter. He had to do what he had to do, and that meant making the world think he was attracted to this idiot.

Besides, Bruce had threatened to ground him if he didn't.

Two hours and about three hundred dollars out of Roy's wallet later, they continued to walk along, browsing the various stores surrounding them.

Roy asked quietly, "You've been awful picky about what's romantic and what's not. Since when do you know so much about romance, Bird Boy? You've never even been on a real date before…"

"Bruce told me what to do. And what makes you think I've never been on a date before?"

"Come on. It's obvious. You always hang out by yourself, and Wayne keeps you so busy that you don't have _time_ to go out and get a girlfriend… or boyfriend… hey, what_ are_ you, anyway?"

"And that is your business how?"

"Everything about you is my business. I'm your boyfriend, remember?"

Dick laughed a little.

"Yeah, I remember. Just make sure _you_ do."

"HEY, HARPER!!"

The young 'couple' whirled around at the sound of the new voice. Dick stared in confusion, but Roy's eyes widened in panic as a small group of teenagers approached.

"Aw, geez, not _now…_" Roy hissed.

"What? Who are they?" Dick asked.

"Some friends from school. But I don't want them to see me with _you_. It'll ruin my reputation!"

"_Excuse_ me? _I _would ruin your reputation?!" Dick shot back, looking extremely offended. "What's _that_ supposed to mean?"

Roy fumbled, "Um, ah, nothing. I-I didn't mean_ ruin_, exactly, but…"

"Just get rid of them. Fast."

As the trio approached, Roy greeted the lanky brunette who had started the conversation.

"Hey, Randall. What's up?"

"Nothing much," Randall replied. "Me and the guys decided to put off our homework for a while by seeing what's new at the video arcade. Want to join us?"

This time, warning Roy by locking his hand in a death grip was unnecessary. The red-head already knew what to do.

"Uh, no thanks. I'm kinda busy right now, you know?" he said immediately, jerking his head subtly in Dick's direction. This simple action caused the other kids to turn to stare at the Gotham teen as Roy began the introductions, "Um, Dick, this is Alex Randall and Kim Brooks and Jeff Dillan. They're friends of mine from school. And guys, this is Dick Grayson. He's a, uh… friend of mine."

_Smooth, Harper, real smooth,_ Dick thought in slight disgust. _You're supposed to _want_ to be with me!_

But 'the guys' were apparently big fans of the tabloids.

"You mean _boy_friend!" Jeff immediately put in.

"You mean it's true?" Alex queried, eyes wide. "I thought the newspaper just made all that up. You two are really…?"

"Oh yeah."

_Well at least that bonehead didn't hesitate to answer…_

"Well that's… good," Alex said, as if struggling for the correct adjective. "Congrats."

"Thank you," Dick and Roy chorused.

"Oh, darn," Kim put in, pouting playfully. "Well, you know what they say about all the good ones…"

She was staring directly at Dick as she spoke.

Dick blushed deeply but stood his ground and smiled back at her. He gave Roy's hand a little squeeze, as if saying 'let's go NOW'.

Roy was about to obey when…

"I still don't believe it!" Alex laughed. "What about all those _girls_ you've dated at school, Harper?"

"That's all over now," Dick jumped in quickly before Roy could come up with his own sure-to-be-stupid explanation.

"Yeah, well, _I_ won't believe it until I actually see you two kiss."

"Who cares what _you _believe?" countered Dick, finally letting his irritation shine through. "We know what our relationship is, and that's all that matters."

Which was Dick's way of telling Roy to quit worrying about his reputation. And of telling Alex to buzz off.

Roy got the message.

Alex didn't.

"Oh, yeah? Well, I _dare_ you to kiss Harper—on the lips—right now."

"C'mon, Alex, leave them alone," Kim said uncertainly, tugging on his arm a little. "Dick is right. This is their business."

"No way! I wanna see this…"

"I second!" Jeff laughed.

By this point, Roy's face had turned about as white as it possibly could. Dick's was as red as a tomato.

Eyes wide from shock, Roy whispered out the side of his mouth, "Um… what's the plan now, Wonder Boy?"

"…Actually… I was kinda hoping _you_ had a plan…"

"…Not exactly what I wanted to hear…"

Meanwhile, Alex was completely oblivious to his very-soon-to-be-ex-school friend's plight and goaded a little more, "Well, go on, you two! Whatcha waiting for? I mean I know _you_—_Roy Harper—the Casanova_ _of Star City_—cannot _possibly_ be shy about kissing your boyfriend in public. Unless, of course, he's not really your boyfriend…"

"Of course he is!"

_I can't believe I just said that_…

"So let's see some lip action, dudes! Come on!" cried Jeff.

Roy and Dick turned to face each other.

"No way am I doing this, Roy," Dick muttered. The natural background noises that filled the mall effectively kept everyone but Roy from hearing his words. "No way am I wasting my first kiss on a dork like you."

At this, Roy positively _smirked_.

"So you _haven't _been on a real date before."

Dick scowled slightly but didn't answer.

And suddenly, Roy saw the light. The perfect way to get back at Wonder Boy for the past week—even if it meant cutting his nose off to spite his face. As it were.

Grabbing his shocked 'boyfriend' by the shoulders, Roy pulled Dick in and—

"Oh, _wow!_" Alex, Jeff and Kim chorused in awe.

Then Alex pulled out his cell phone and hit the 'record' button.

--

By that night, a new video entitled 'Look What I Found At The Mall!' had been added to youtube.

--

Besides the obvious, there were two people who were VERY ticked off upon seeing the video.

The first was Bruce Wayne. Who spent the rest of that day and most of the next reminding Dick that he was absolutely, positively, one hundred percent BANNED from dating until he was at LEAST seventy-two.

"But this whole charade was your idea!" Dick protested.

"It was _not_ my idea for Roy to go tongue-spelunking in _your_ mouth."

"Oh, so you mean it was _my_ idea? And what kind of a stupid expression is that?!"

The second person to be mad was Donna Troy. Despite Wally's best efforts, the young Amazon had finally found out about Dick and Roy's romance, thanks to the now-infamous youtube video. And to be honest, she wasn't exactly _mad_. At least not any more. Trashing her bedrooms on both Paradise Island and Titans' Tower really helped in that department.

"Why didn't he _tell_ me he was seeing Dick?!" she wailed, crying into a tissue while Garth and Wally attempted to comfort her. "He should have told me—_you_ should have told me!"

Wally flinched at the angry finger suddenly being pointed in his direction.

"It wasn't any of my business!" the speedster protested, holding up his arms to protect his face just the way he'd been taught to do when in mortal danger.

Donna nodded remorsefully.

"You're right. I'm sorry," she apologized, sniffling, as Garth patted her shoulder. "I just… I just really like Roy, you know? And this is so unexpected… if there had been some kind of _sign_ or _hint_… but there was _nothing_…"

The boys nodded their agreement.

"I'm okay, guys, thanks," she said bravely. Donna sniffed one last time before wiping her tears away. "At least I will be in a little while. And at least I know Roy will be very happy with Dick," she went on as optimistically as she could. "Dick is a wonderful person, the greatest. He and Roy will be very happy… together…"

And she immediately dissolved into tears all over again.

Garth and Wally exchanged glances. It seemed as if they'd been drafted into an afternoon of shoulder-patting and tissue-offering when they heard a door opening elsewhere in the Tower.

"That must be Dick or Roy," Garth figured.

"Oh, no, I don't want to see them! Not yet!" Donna whispered in panic.

"Well, maybe they'll go away," suggested Wally.

They didn't get to continue their conversation before Dick and Roy's discussion reached their ears. From all the way down the hall:

"Speedy, what is the _matter_ with you?! I thought we'd finally come to an understanding about this! You're not allowed to date other people while you're dating me!"

"News flash here, Wonder Boy—_you don't own me!_ And what gave you the right to get rid of Aya's phone number?"

"What I want to know is how you got it back!"

"I don't have to tell you anything!"

"_Speedy!_"

"_What!_"

"You're supposed to be with me! You can't just go gallivanting around with anybody you want!"

"Well if I knew what gallivanting meant, I'd answer that!"

"We're supposed to go to the movies tonight! You promised! You can't break our date tonight to go out with some flirty waitress!"

"You pushed me into that date with you!"

"I hardly think that letting you use _my_ motorcycle for a week qualifies as 'pushing', Bowhead."

"Hmmm… make it two weeks and I'll take you to the movies."

"One and a half!"

"Fine. But you have to pay for your own ticket."

"Fine! But you better be there or so help me I'll—"

"Don't worry. I'll be there."

Then they heard Dick's footsteps storming down the hall towards the front door of the Tower, undoubtedly headed for home. Roy remained in place a while longer before his footsteps joined Dick's.

"Well that was… that was… actually, I don't even know _what_ that was…" Garth muttered.

"I know _exactly_ what it was," Wally replied, nodding sadly. "Sounds to me like Dick has been bribing Roy to go out with him. He must _really_ have the hots for him."

"I don't think that's—" Garth started. But he was promptly cut off by Donna.

"That's _horrible!_" she yelled. Wally and Garth turned to stare at her in surprise. "Roy doesn't have the right to walk all over Dick like that! We have to do something!"

"Uh… like what?"

"Donna, I really—" Garth began again, but he was once again interrupted.

"I don't know! Either convince Dick to find somebody else or show Roy what a wonderful partner he has in Dick! Just… _something!_" cried Donna, sounding almost desperate. "We can't let this go on!"

"Wait a minute," said Wally. "So you wanna stick your nose into the personal life of Speedy the Boy Bonehead and Robin the wanna-be Vulcan… why does this not appeal to me?"

"Oh, come on. This is different," Donna insisted. "You know that Dick would do the same for us if we were in trouble."

"Guys, we overheard half of a conversation from clear across the hall," Garth reminded them. "It's quite probable that we are completely misinterpreting this whole—"

"Oh, okay, I guess you're right," Wally reluctantly consented to Donna's plan. "We can meet at my place to talk about it, if you want. You coming, Gillhead?"

Garth just sighed.

That night, Donna and Wally met as planned. Garth had opted out and was still at the Tower, making a few phone calls…

--

"If you ask me, this whole mess is the fault of Roy's guardian," Donna decided immediately, munching on one of the cookies that they'd picked up on the way to Wally's house. "Roy is simply emulating what he sees Mr. Queen doing—running around with everyone who catches his eye, disrespecting his partners, behaving like an arrogant… _man_…"

"Yeah, but Bruce Wayne does the same thing," Wally argued.

"Not quite. Yes, he does run around with women, which I thoroughly disapprove of. However, he is doing it more to cover up his activities as a crime-fighter than because he enjoys it."

"Coulda fooled me…"

"That's exactly what he wants to do."

"…Wait, so you're saying you want me to go confront Oliver Queen, tell him to his face that he's a dork—not that I don't agree with you there—and expect him to do something about Roy's behavior for once?!"

"No, I'll handle Queen. You talk to Dick."

"WHAT!! That's even worse!"

"Wally, we have to find out why a strong, confident person like Dick is letting Roy push him around this way. It's just not like him. Something could be wrong."

Wally thought about it for a minute. As much as he hated to admit it, Donna was one hundred percent right. As tough as Dick was, he was obviously in over his head this time. And what were friends for if not to bail each other out when the occasion called for it?

The teenaged speedster nodded.

"Okay. I'll do it."

Just then, the phone rang. Since everyone else had already gone to bed, Wally got up to answer it.

"Hey there, West residence… Gillhead?"

Donna sprang up from the table and pressed her ear up against the phone, hoping to listen in on what Aqualad was saying.

Meanwhile, Wally continued, "Something wrong, Garth?"

"No, nothing's wrong," the Atlantean assured them. "I wanted to let you know that I've just spoken with Dick, and _he_ says—"

"You spoke with Dick?! Great! You saved me the trouble! What's ol' Wonder Breath got to say about this?"

"Actually, it's really quite interesting."

"Well, hurry up! Tell us!" Wally cried. "What's the scoop?"

"You'll hate yourself forever."

"Please don't tell me you DID NOT discuss his relationship with Roy."

"Of course I did. In fact, Dick tells me that he and Roy will be together at Gotham Central Park tomorrow morning, but only because—"

"Gotham Central Park. Got it. Did he say what time."

"…About ten. But—"

"Terrific! Thanks, Fish Stick! You rock!"

Wally hung up the phone.

"That's wonderful news!" Donna said happily, trying not to be too noisy so she wouldn't wake anybody up.

"Yeah! Now we know exactly where Dick will be tomorrow morning so we don't have to go wandering around wasting time!" Wally agreed. "If only we could get the same kind of information about Oliver Queen…"

The phone rang again. Wally picked it up immediately.

"West residence… Gillhead? What're you calling back so soon for?… you talked to Roy too?… hey, before you say anything, you wouldn't happen to know where Ollie will be tomorrow and when, would you?… YOU DO?!… that's fantastic! Bye, Garth!"

Wally hung up the phone.

"Tomorrow morning, nine o'clock, the dining room at the Ritz Carlton in Star City."

Donna and Wally exchanged high-fives.

--

Garth blinked at the phone in surprise and sighed heavily as he realized that Wally had just hung up on him. Again. He briefly considered calling a third time to tell Wally and Donna the truth behind Dick and Roy's 'relationship' but figured he'd better not. They were both too caught up in their own fantasy to listen to reason.

As he left the Tower, Garth decided that he should warn Dick about what two of the Titans were planning. Unfortunately, he'd be busy with Aquaman until the end of the week. So he'd have to wait until Saturday. Maybe he'd find out exactly where Gotham Central Park was and pay the team leader a visit then.

--

Thanks to the promise of a few extra days with the R-Cycle, Roy kept his word and went to the movies with Dick that night. The movie was pretty good, but Dick was not in a very happy mood by the time it was over because Mr. Freeze had failed to show up and freeze one of them.

"And that would be a _bad_ thing?" Roy asked, sounding bored.

"Yes! I want to be kidnapped NOW!"

"Oh, relax, Wonder Boy. I'm sure he'll pop out and snatch ya eventually."

"And get off youtube! I don't know how you can even stand to watch that disgusting thing!" snapped Dick.

"I'm not _watching_ it. That would be gross. I'm counting the number of hits. If my calculations are correct, we should have two million by Wednesday. But I'm no good at numbers. Want to check the equations for me?"

"After the fuss you put up this afternoon about going to the movies? No chance."

"Would it help if I said was sorry?"

"No."

"…Then would it help if I started acting like the absolutely most romantic guy on the planet?"

"I'll believe that when I see it. Which I'd better this weekend at Gotham Central Park or _else_. And bring your ice skates."

"Huh? The park?"

"Yes. Batman and I found out who one of Freeze's men is and 'let slip' in his presence that you and I would be there on Saturday."

"But it's supposed to be below freezing!"

Dick glared.

"Right. The park. Great idea."

--

_And back at that SAME abandoned building in the outskirts of Gotham City…_

Dempsey and four other men stood shivering silently in the large basement, waiting for Mr. Freeze to give them their orders. It had been nearly two weeks since their last kidnapping job, and all five of them were eager for some action.

Finally, Freeze turned to face his men.

"If Mr. Dempsey is correct, then our best chance of following through with our plans for Grayson and Harper is Saturday morning at Gotham Central Park at ten o'clock. I expect all of you to be there."

"Which one are we snatchin', boss?" one of the men asked eagerly.

Freeze looked at him for a moment before giving a simple, one-word answer:

"Both."

"_Both?_" Dempsey repeated before he could stop himself. Luckily for him, Freeze did not reprimand him for doubting and elaborated, "Our plans are not moving as quickly as they should. We will need to start doubling the number of victims if we are to obtain the necessary funds on schedule… that is, if you think you can handle it?"

The men exchanged confident glances and nodded among themselves. If it meant they'd be earning a few extra bucks this week, they could handle just about anything.

* * *

**Next chapter should be interesting... hee hee. XD Incidentally, I stole and adapted the description of Dick's new jacket from Detective Comics #390. It was published back in--yes--the sixties. Now _those_ were good comics. Not like the stuff today. And what's this about them killing off Bruce Wayne?! Didn't they learn their lesson the last time they made somebody else Batman?**

**Okay, granted, I haven't actually _read_ Knightfall. And yeah, that one time I glanced through it at the bookstore I was too busy being mad at the fact that Nightwing had a ponytail to notice if it was actually any good, but I'm sure that Azrael is not longer the Dark Knight for a very good reason.**

**There's my rant for the day. You are now free to leave a review.**


	5. Snowbound

**_A Match Made In..._**

**Alrighty, here I am once again to update. Unlike previous chapters, this chapter wanted to end much too soon, so it's a bit shorter than the others. Next week will be another 'why don't you just END it already?!' chapter, and then we'll have an epilogue. Yes, we are THAT close to the end. Enjoy it while it lasts!**

* * *

Time? Ten o'clock A.M.

Date? Saturday, February 14th.

Temperature? Fourteen degrees.

Roy? Very annoyed.

Dick? Even more so.

"I know I promised to be romantic, here," Roy grumbled as he stomped along the snow-covered path with his hands deep in his pockets, "but it's kinda hard to think of whispering sweet nothings into somebody's ears when the wind chill factor is enough to give a polar bear pneumonia!"

"Look, I'm sorry, alright?"

Roy blinked in surprise, temporarily forgetting his discomfort. Dick was actually _apologizing_ to him?

The archer grinned slightly.

"You're cold too, huh?"

"Hey. I'm human," Dick replied, shrugging and shivering simultaneously. "I know it's cold, but that's what we want. The colder it is, the more likely it is that Freeze will show up. But that's why I suggested we go ice skating together—maybe that'll keep us warmer."

"Yeah. Because we all know how warm ice is."

"I meant the exercise, wise guy. Look, there's somebody selling hot chocolate over there. We could have some before putting our skates on, if you want."

"I'm paying?"

"Of course."

"Well… for once I'm not complaining. Go save us a bench and I'll be right back."

Dick nodded his agreement and wandered off towards an unoccupied park bench. Roy started his own trek towards the hot chocolate guy.

Of course, he knew it was all a cover.

Roy got to the hot chocolate cart just as the previous customer was leaving. Then the vendor turned to face Roy, who stared back in surprise.

"Barbara?!" he exclaimed, puzzled. "You're supposed to be Wayne!"

"Two hot chocolates, coming right up," was the young woman's immediate response. They needed to keep up their charade, Roy realized. But as she set about preparing their drinks, the woman who was secretly Batgirl went on in a low voice, "Bruce couldn't make it. Two-Face broke out of Arkham. He asked me to take his place. Hope I didn't disappoint you."

"You? Heck no."

"Why not? You afraid Bruce is gonna string you up from the nearest tree because of that cute little youtube video?"

Roy went rigid at that comment and thrust a five dollar bill at the now grinning Barbara.

"Keep the change," he said, glowering.

Biting her lip to keep from laughing out loud, the commissioner's daughter handed Roy his hot chocolates and couldn't resist giggling a little as the Boy Bowman high-tailed it to the bench where Dick was waiting for him.

As Roy approached, Dick smiled gratefully and took one of the Styrofoam cups from him.

"Thanks," the former acrobat said, wrapping his gloved but still cold hands around the cup.

"Shut up," Roy replied moodily. Dick gave him a disapproving look as Roy plunked down next to him and nearly choked on his drink because it was a little _too_ hot for ingesting just yet.

"Still not ready to be romantic yet, are you?"

Roy ignored that comment. Instead, he told Dick about Bruce's absence and who had come in to watch their backs instead. And ten minutes later, both boys had finished their hot chocolate and were lacing up their skates.

"You ever skated before?" Roy asked.

"No, but it doesn't look _that_ hard…"

"On the contrary!" Roy piped up, eager to make good. "It's _really_ hard—takes _forever_ to learn to do right! I might have to hold onto you the _whole time_ to make sure you don't fall on your face."

Dick blinked.

And grinned.

"You know something? You could be right about that…"

Roy grinned back. He could practically feel the handlebars of the R-Cycle beneath his palms already.

Roy stood and turned to help Dick to his feet. The dark-haired boy seemed a bit wobbly (although he was mostly doing that on purpose), so Roy took his hands to keep him upright him and carefully led him to the frozen lake. Dick allowed him to do so as Barbara looked on discreetly.

_So far, so good_, Barbara thought, glancing around cautiously for any signs of Freeze or his men. Secretly, she hoped they wouldn't show. Dick and Roy were so reckless that it scared her sometimes; why Bruce and Oliver had permitted their boys to go through with this risky charade was beyond her.

But it wasn't her place to question Batman. Heck, even Robin wouldn't dare to do that (well, not usually). So she kept her negative thoughts to herself and did her job, ready to sneak out and swing back as Batgirl at the very first signs of trouble.

Meanwhile, out on the ice, Roy had wrapped his arm around Dick's waist to steady him. They weren't moving very quickly, but that just gave more people the chance to see the young couple and hopefully spread the news to their friends. Dick tried to appear relaxed but was actually a bit tense in Roy's grip, still wary after the mall incident.

_Freeze had better make his move soon or Bruce is gonna kill us… first me, then Roy… and then me again…_

"You doin' alright, Sugar Pie?" Roy asked, his tone just sarcastic enough to reassure Dick that he was most emphatically NOT being serious.

Not missing a beat, Dick deadpanned right back, "Just fine, Honey Bunch—GAH!"

Okay, so the comeback would have been more effective without the scream at the end. But considering he was in the process of falling flat on his back at the time, that minor detail was forgivable.

Speaking softly through a rather toothy smile, Dick hissed up at the grinning Harper, "You said you'd hang on to me!"

"Well _you_ said skating didn't look that hard. So I let go."

"I hate you."

"Aww. I hate you, too, Sugar Pie."

Still smiling (or rather, smirking), Roy nevertheless offered Dick his hand, which the other boy took.

And then Dick proceeded to drag Roy down with him.

The red-head managed to break his fall with his hands instead of his nose. Barbara couldn't help but chuckle at the two of them, in spite of the danger they both were in.

Speaking of…

Barbara squinted slightly, trying to get a better look at the forest of bare trees in the distance. Was someone there hiding in the shadows, or had she imagined it?

Of course, it could just be an innocent hiker.

But…?

She wasted no time in shutting down her small cart and striding off briskly, heading for the trunk of the car where she'd hidden her Batgirl suit. It wasn't _her_ car, of course; that would have been too obvious. She had chosen some random sedan situated in the parking lot, picked the trunk lock and thrown the black briefcase containing her Batgirl equipment inside. It could have been a risky maneuver—what if the owner of the car decided to drive away before she could retrieve her suit?

But Batman had been more than prepared for this operation. He had spent weeks scrutinizing every make, model and license plate number of every car that entered the Gotham Central Park parking lot, looking for patterns. He had finally found a few automobiles that belonged to people who apparently enjoyed spending their Saturdays at the park, and then he gave the information to Barbara when he realized that he wouldn't be able to make it.

So Barbara jogged for the parking lot, hoping she wouldn't be too late.

--

A few moments of slipping and sliding helplessly around the ice—much to the amusement of the other skaters—Dick was the first to make it back to his feet. Then he hauled Roy up and glanced over to stop Barbara's laughter (he _knew _she must be practically on the floor by now) with a Bat-glare he'd stolen from Bruce.

There was just one problem.

"Um… where's Babs?"

Roy glanced towards the cart where their ally had been staked out. His eyes widened as he realized that the cart was now closed up and vacant.

The boys looked around, still holding each other in something vaguely resembling a hug to keep from falling down, trying to find Barbara. Unfortunately, she was nowhere to be seen.

"You don't think Freeze got her, do you?" Roy whispered warily.

"I doubt it. Sneaking up on people to quietly kidnap them isn't his style, remember?" Dick replied in an equally soft voice. "Besides, she obviously _planned_ on leaving. See? The cart is all closed up."

"Don't be a wise guy."

"Speaking of wise, might I ask _what_ stroke of genius stopped you from sending Garth the e-mail about our undercover work to catch Freeze?"

"What?"

"Dick!"

They turned quickly at the sound of Garth's voice. The Atlantean was running towards them at top speed, so Roy put his arms around Dick once again to guide him back to the lake's edge where they could safely talk with their unexpected guest.

Garth was standing and waiting for them by the time they got there. He was quite close to the edge of the ice, obviously not expecting Roy to slam into the snow bank and fall face-first into the day-old powder. Dick laughed at him as Garth hopped out of the way.

"What's up, Garth?" Dick asked as Roy grumbled. "And have you seen Babs anywhere? She's sort of AWOL…"

"Sorry, I haven't seen her," Garth told them hurriedly. "But that's not what I came to tell you. You see, Donna and Wally—"

It was then that Oliver Queen—with impeccable timing, as always—put in an appearance, with Wally and Donna not far behind.

"Too late," Garth sighed to himself.

"I don't believe this! Miss Ponytail was telling the truth!" Ollie yelled, referring to a now rather offended-looking Donna.

"Huh?" Roy and Dick chorused in twin confusion. Garth's head fell into his hand as the Star City millionaire went on, almost laughing, "You really hit the jackpot this time, Roy, I'll tell you that much!"

For the first time in his life, Roy was utterly speechless. Dick's jaw dropped in shock and fury at Ollie's fairly revolting attitude. Garth and Wally just stared in horror as Donna wound up her fist, ready to knock the man's block off. Wally was able to stop her… at least until Queen started talking again, that is.

"I don't believe it! _You_ dating _Wonder Boy?_ What did you have to do to win _him_?"

Wally quickly wrapped one arm around a nearby tree to anchor himself as Donna struggled to break from his grasp and strangle Queen, furious that he'd talk about a friend of hers like he was a piece of property.

_No wonder Roy acts the way he does!_

By this time, Dick had already made a snowball and looked like he was about to hurl it right at Roy's guardian. Fortunately, Roy himself actually stepped up on Ollie's behalf.

"C'mon, Grayson, don't _hit_ him…"

Dick, still glaring at the apparently oblivious Oliver Queen, lowered the hand that had the snowball in it. Roy took the opportunity to snatch the snowball from Dick's had and let it fly.

WHAP!

The force of the unusually large icy snowball smacking him in the kisser was enough to send Ollie flying backwards into Donna and Wally. All three squealed like girls as they went down. Garth tried not to laugh as Dick gaped in astonishment.

"I thought you said not to hit him!" he commented.

"Yeah. Because _I_ wanted to hit him. Nobody talks about my boyfriend like that!"

"_Thank_ you! You have _no_ idea how long I've waited for that!"

Dick immediately set about making a big deal about the whole thing, enthusiastically (supposedly) throwing his arms around Roy. The red-head was shocked at first, but when he remembered that it would look bad to the other park patrons if he didn't hug his own boyfriend back, he quickly responded in kind.

And then they froze.

Literally.

--

Bruce Wayne stood far from the scene, arms crossed, scowling at the chaos below him. Commissioner Gordon had called the moment after Freeze had contacted him about… well…

Bruce didn't move a muscle at the sound of soft rustling from behind him—he knew who it was. And once the rustling stopped, he said in a surprisingly calm voice, "Where have you been?"

"I'm sorry, Batman, I just went to change into costume," Batgirl tried to explain. She felt her face turning as red as her hair as she spoke. "I saw something moving around here and—"

"That was _me!_"

"…Oh…

"Well how was I supposed to know?! You didn't _tell_ me, and last time I checked, you were busy chasing Two-Face around the city!"

"Turns out that was just a distraction," Bruce growled back. "Two-Face didn't have anything planned—Freeze just turned him loose to keep me away from the park while he and his men did _this_. Guess he figured I was getting too close to capturing him."

"Have you received the ransom demand yet?" she asked finally.

"Yes. Freeze called my cell phone a little while ago. It's no different from all the other times—half a million within the hour for Dick's life. I suspect Ollie has gotten a similar call concerning Roy."

Batgirl sighed quietly and turned her gaze back to the swarm of policemen and paramedics now surrounding the lake. The place had been taped off, so there weren't any more innocent citizens around (_Good thing I got my costume out of that trunk before someone drove off with it!_). The only 'civilians' still present were Oliver Queen and a couple of Robin's Titan friends, who were currently being questioned about what had just happened. There were also a few photographers and reporters hanging around, though the police barricades were quite effective in keeping the majority of them at a good distance from the immobile teens.

"I'll have to go down there in a few minutes," Bruce informed her. "It would look bad if I didn't. Besides, maybe I can find out if they've got any clues."

"So I'll be going after the good doctor, I suppose?"

"Yes. You know where he is."

"Right. So I put Freeze on ice and get the reagent here ASAP?"

Bruce finally turned to face the now-grinning Batgirl. Except he wasn't grinning. At all. Apparently, her attempt to imitate Robin's bad puns had not gone over well with the Dark Knight Detective.

_Sheesh, tough crowd, _she shrugged off the bad response. _He's probably just worried about Dick, that's all…_

"Report to me the moment you find anything. I'll leave my comm link on."

Bruce walked off to the left, toward the place where he had hidden his car. Needless to say, it would look a bit suspicious if Bruce Wayne came darting out of the woods at random; he would have to make it look like he'd just arrived. Probably in a panic and pestering everybody around him with stupid questions, if he wanted to keep up the air-headed playboy image. Not that he didn't want to do all of that anyway.

Batgirl left soon after, heading for her motorcycle.

--

"They were WHAT!"

"They were _pretending_ to be in love," Garth repeated to the incredulous duo in front of him. "I tried to tell you over the phone, but you wouldn't listen—it was all an act to solve a case."

Wally and Donna stared at Garth a minute longer before the Amazon finally queried, "But why didn't they tell us about it in the first place?"

"From what Dick told me, I think Roy was supposed to e-mail us about what was going on, but for some reason, he never did."

"I bet he did it on purpose, that stupid little jerk," Wally grumbled angrily to himself. He felt like such an idiot!

"I guess we really messed things up, didn't we?" Donna sighed guiltily.

"Don't feel too badly," Garth was quick to reassure her. "They _wanted_ something like this to happen so that they could arrest Mr. Freeze. That was the whole point of their charade."

"Still, I wish there was something we could do to help," sighed the princess. "Oh, by the way. Where did Mr. Queen get to?"

"Not that we actually care or anything," Wally shrugged.

"He's still speaking on the phone," Garth explained. "I think he's trying to get the ransom money for Mr. Freeze."

"…Then why don't we _deliver_ it for him?"

The boys looked at Donna, who was standing there with a sly grin on her pretty face. They couldn't help but wonder what she was up to…

* * *

**Yes. Miss Ponytail. They actually used that once. I have the comic book to prove it (waves around _Teen Titans #13_). Of course, you're all TT fans, you probably knew that...**

**Anyway, I apologize if I made Ollie sound to much like a jerk but... he _is_ a jerk. I think you can also guess at this point that Dinah Lance doesn't exist here, because if she did and Ollie still dared to act like that she'd skewer him with one of his own arrows...**


	6. On Ice

**_A Match Made In..._**

**Yes, I came back. :D We actually get a li'l bit of action in this chapter. Which is NOT the end, by the way. I know in last week's post I said this was the last chapter but... I lied. I split it up into two chapters. Next chapter WILL be the last one before the epilogue, however.**

* * *

When Batgirl arrived at the abandoned warehouse, well, just that. It _was_ abandoned. She could tell that someone had been dwelling there recently, but at that moment, whoever-it-was had apparently stepped out for a bit.

Perfect.

Now she could skip the whole taking-down-Freeze shtick and just steal the reagent for her friends.

After glancing around furtively to make sure she was completely alone, the red-head ventured deeper into the huge room and began to systematically search the place. First the desk drawers, then the cabinets, along with every nook and cranny she could find. Her green eyes eventually caught sight of a few loose tiles in the far corner of the room. With a little help from the small screwdriver stowed away in her utility belt, she was able to pry the tiles off and see what was hidden beneath them.

The space beneath the tiles wasn't particularly large. There was just enough space to hide the liquid-filled glass vials that were currently being kept there.

"These must be the reagents for the new Creon Freeze invented," Batgirl murmured to herself. "Sure are a lot of them… twenty reagents must mean twenty kinds of Creon… and assuming that the one he used on Dick and Roy _isn't_ the same as the previous four he's used… that still leaves sixteen for me to choose from."

She threw her head back with a sigh of frustration, closing her eyes momentarily. Then, being the well-trained crime-fighter she was, she opted against calling Bruce for help and reached forward to take a closer look at one of the vials.

A small white label with black print was taped to it.

"'Wayne, B.'," Batgirl read off the label. She smirked down at the rest of the neatly-arranged vials and murmured, "Well. This shouldn't take long."

Of course, it was that exact moment when she heard footsteps headed down the stairs straight towards her. Several pairs of footsteps, from the sound of it.

Quickly replacing the vial and the tile, Batgirl scrambled to her feet and silently ran for a nearby storage closet. She kept the door open just enough to be able to see what was going on outside.

Finally, six people appeared in the decrepit old basement. One of them was Victor Fries. The others, she assumed, were his latest 'hired help'.

Freeze sat down as one of the men scrambled to get him a drink.

"How long do you think it'll take for Queen and Wayne to cough up the dough?" the man asked.

"Soon, unless they want to get blocks of ice in exchange for their one million dollars," said another with a laugh. Batgirl recognized him as John Dempsey, a minor criminal with a history of stealing cars and the like. The last time he'd been sent to prison was when he'd been caught working for the Penguin, and apparently, he hadn't learned his lesson yet.

_Well, as Dick would say, I guess we'll just have to re-pound it into his brain!_

Though she was eager to leap out and do just that, Batgirl remained rooted to the spot, waiting for the right moment to either sneak out or confront her adversaries. She wasn't quite sure which at the moment.

Meanwhile, Mr. Freeze sat down in the room's only chair and replied to the man who had spoken first, "You needn't worry, Mr. Clark. The money will be in our hands soon enough."

"Hey, how many more times do you think we'll have to do this kidnapping thing?" a third man asked. Batgirl identified this one as Jake "Snake Eyes" Bartlett, accused and convicted of cheating at several local casinos and generally being a royal pain in the rear. "And who's our next target?"

"We will do 'this kidnapping thing' as many times as is _necessary_, Mr. Bartlett," Mr. Freeze told the man frostily (well duh). "As for our next target, I have already sent Mr. Nathan out to scout for another appropriate victim. He should be returning shortly."

As if on cue, a pair of footsteps echoed from the staircase, signaling the arrival of yet another visitor to the basement hideaway. Before long, a man of medium build dressed in a long fur coat and blue jeans entered the room. Batgirl squinted and tried to get a good look at his facial features, but the man was wearing a wide-brimmed hat low over his eyes, shrouding his face in impenetrable dark shadow.

"Ah, Mr. Nathan, how kind of you to join us," Freeze greeted with just a trace of sarcasm. "We have just about completed our fifth kidnapping, and the rest of the boys are eagerly awaiting their next assignment. Who do you recommend as our new target?"

Batgirl decided that now would be a good time to make her entrance before any more henchpeople showed up. Sure, she could have handled a lot more than just the six people in the room right now, but she just couldn't wait any longer. Not with Dick and Roy depending on her!

So before Mr. Nathan could answer his boss's question, the Dominoed Daredoll flung open the closet door and suggested a new target of her own:

"How about your rear end?!"

"Hey, it's Batgirl! Run for it!"

The red-head smirked. She absolutely _loved_ scaring the henchmen's pants off! She watched, thoroughly entertained, as some of the men bolted for the stairs in an attempt to escape. Mr. Freeze, however, wasn't quite as amused.

Rising from the chair he'd been sitting in and picking up his freeze ray simultaneously, Gotham's coolest villain fired the gun at poor hapless Nathan.

"The next man who tries to leave will meet the same fate," he warned. Everyone knew he was serious. "Now remove this Bat-clad busybody before she contacts the rest of her colony!"

Batgirl fell back into a fighting stance, ready to take on whatever the frightened goons dared to throw at her. But before anyone could even think of starting a fight, their attention was drawn back to the frozen Nathan.

The man was _vibrating_.

In fact, the whole block of ice the guy was trapped in was vibrating, too.

Within seconds, the huge ice block had melted away to a puddle of water on the floor, although that quickly froze over due to the room's chilly temperature. Nathan stood in the middle of it all, dry as a bone.

"What the…? Hey, how'd you do that, Nate?" Bartlett queried, fascinated, as he approached his 'coworker'.

His only answer was a red-gloved fist to the nose.

Vibrating? Red gloves?

"That isn't Nathan, you fool!" Freeze snapped, lifting the gun again.

'Nathan', meanwhile, had removed his hat to reveal the distinctive yellow mask of Kid Flash, Fastest Boy Alive.

"Aww, you noticed? I'm touched," the speedster replied, grinning widely. He kept right on smiling, even when he had to run out of the way of another icy blast from the freeze gun.

"Too slow, Icicle Head!" taunted the boy.

Freeze glared and, knowing the futility of trying to freeze Kid Flash again, ordered his men to go after the young red-head. He just barely managed to finish his sentence before a glowing golden lasso looped itself tightly around his freeze gun and yanked it right out of his gloved hands.

"I think I have had just about enough of this contraption," the lasso's owner proclaimed, standing by the stairwell and examining the weapon in her hands with mild disgust. Aqualad was next to her, holding a handcuffed, shivering and practically naked young man—presumably the real Mr. Nathan—by the arm.

Batgirl just gave them a vaguely annoyed look.

"Well, thanks a lot, you three," she declared sarcastically. "Now what am _I_ supposed to do?"

"Oh, we didn't come to spoil the party," Kid Flash assured her, holding his hands up innocently. "We just want the reagent for Grayson and Harper. Then we'll be more than happy to let you handle the creeps."

"In that case, check the loose tile in the corner and stay out of the way! I've got a few goons to gift-wrap…"

With that, Batgirl leapt into action with a powerful jumping spin kick. Her high-heeled boot made contact with Dempsey's head, sending him to the ground in an unconscious heap.

"Wow! My kind of woman!" Kid Flash proclaimed, only half-joking, as Wonder Girl ripped the loose tile away.

Batgirl didn't react, so Kid Flash figured that she hadn't heard his comment. At least until an unimpressed Batgirl flung one of the thugs at his head.

Aqualad snickered slightly as his red-headed teammate was thrown up against the wall by the semiconscious Jake Bartlett and subsequently squashed beneath the man's 190-pound frame. He would have helped the poor guy but, uh… he had to keep an eye on Nathan. Yeah, that was it. And Wonder Girl was busy looking for the reagent.

"I've got it!"

Well, not anymore.

"Leave him for Batgirl to handle," the princess ordered, indicating Nathan. She hastily pulled a vial full of blue liquid out of the ray gun she'd previous confiscated and replaced it with a pink-filled one from the secret panel in the floor. "We've got to get this reagent to the guys, and fast! C'mon, Kid Flash… oh for the love of _Aphrodite_…"

Wonder Girl stormed over to the gasping speedster and, while clutching the ray gun with one hand, easily lifted Bartlett with the other and threw him straight at the unsuspecting Nathan. Aqualad quickly jumped away from both henchmen before they could fall over onto _him_ next.

"Now quit fooling around, Twinkletoes. We're needed at the park!"

Kid Flash got to his knees in time to watch Batgirl as she delivered a knock-out punch to the last henchman standing and went after Mr. Freeze.

"I sure hope you liked it back at Arkham Asylum, because you've got a reservation there for the next ten years."

Freeze didn't answer. He simply watched Batgirl slap the cuffs on him as the three Titans headed up the stairs. The Masked Maiden was somewhat disconcerted by his lack of commentary about how she hadn't really defeated him and he'd be back someday soon to take out his revenge on her and her pitiful companions.

"I talked to the doctors at Arkham earlier this week," she said. "They told me you've been making vast improvements there during the past few months. Why stuff it all up now?"

The man's eyes flickered over to a desk up against the far wall. Batgirl, although wary that this could be a trap, cautiously followed his gaze and found herself staring at a framed photograph.

A photograph of Dr. Victor Fries and his wife, Nora.

"Of course," she murmured. She should have realized. Temporarily ignoring the man's irrational hatred of the Dark Knight, Freeze wasn't nearly as vicious as the other villains in Arkham. Everything he did, he did for his terminally ill bride, whom he had cryogenically frozen in order to keep her alive until a cure could be found.

A cure which he obviously intended to create using the ransom money he obtained from his latest operation.

For a moment—just one short moment—Batgirl was tempted to comfort the former scientist. He was, in his own warped way, only doing what he thought was best.

But that moment quickly passed. Mr. Freeze hated Batman, ever since the Caped Crusader had foiled his first attempt at finding a cure for Nora. He'd sworn to destroy everything Batman loved and cared about—and that included Batgirl, too. Any pity coming from _her_ would be rejected and spat on.

So she kept silent. The silence didn't last long before the sound of police sirens reached the basement of the abandoned office building. Freeze hadn't struggled at all since being cuffed, and he didn't start when he heard the sirens either. He always seemed to know when he was (temporarily) beaten.

By the time the police made it down the stairs, all they found was six unconscious men strewn randomly about the floor and Mr. Freeze sitting calmly in a chair with handcuffs on. But that was more than enough for them—they knew who had been there from the Bat symbols decorating the cuffs—and the seven criminals were soon on their way back to prison where they belonged.

--

Oliver Queen, after a good twenty minutes of ranting and raving at his banker, finally snapped his cell phone shut and rammed it deep into his coat pocket. Scowling deeply, the blond man stalked back to the spot where Roy and Dick had been frozen together for over thirty minutes now. Bruce Wayne was standing very close by, just staring at the two boys.

"Well, my banker says that the five hundred thousand has been cleared for withdrawal," Ollie told a rather disinterested Bruce. "And since I doubt Western Union can get it here within the next half-hour, I've got Barry on stand-by to bring the money if worse comes to worst. You?"

"I'm set. But if everything's gone according to plan, Batgirl should already be on her way back with the reagent and Freeze should be on his way back to Arkham."

Ollie glanced away from Bruce and took a long look at the sixteen-year-old red-head about six feet in front of him. The teen's eyes were open, seemingly staring off into space. His arms were wrapped tightly around the smaller form of Dick Grayson, and he was smiling brightly.

"So you knew about this? I mean, _them_?"

"Of course. It was my idea."

Bruce had fully intended to clarify what he meant by that statement, but one look at the shocked expression on Ollie's face was enough to change his mind.

"_Your_ idea?" the Star City millionaire repeated incredulously.

Bruce nodded mutely.

"YOU were playing matchmaker? With MY kid?!"

Bruce bit his tongue to keep from reacting (a.k.a. busting a gut laughing) as Ollie's face turned a rather interesting shade of purple. Any second now…

"What were you _thinking?!_ Isn't he underage? Isn't that _illegal?_ Don't you need a license for that kind of thing?! Just wait'll the next time we train together—I'll knock your head off!"

Heh. It was always fun messing with Ollie's mind.

"They're not underage, it's not illegal, you don't need a license and you're paranoid."

"_I'm_ paranoid! Ha! Try putting that fortune of yours to good use and invest in a mirror sometime!"

"Overprotective, then."

Ollie blinked, completely speechless for once in his life. Then, trying to act nonchalant (and failing miserably), the Emerald Archer raked a hand through his hair and meekly retorted, "Overprotective? Come on, Bruce, I know Roy can take care of himself. I don't need to be overprotective…"

"Mm-hmm."

"Hey, _I'm_ not the one who stalked his kid around _Disneyworld_ for three days."

Bruce remained silent, still staring fixedly at the frozen teens by the lake. Ollie continued to glare at his new archenemy.

"I'm _not_ overprotective," Queen insisted flatly.

"Of course you're not," the other vigilante agreed, a little too easily. "In fact, considering the way you skip around the country and leave Roy on his own all the time, I sometimes wonder if you care about him at all—"

"I _care!_ Uh… that is… um…" Sigh. "You _suck_, Wayne."

Bruce smirked. Batman, 1; Green Arrow, 0. Come to think of it, considering what had just happened, it was probably more like Batman, 100,000; Green Arrow, -412.

"They can't hear us through that ice, can they?" Ollie questioned suddenly, eyes darting back and forth between the boys and the billionaire.

"Not sure. This is a new compound, so we won't know of its acoustic properties until we can examine it further." Then, just to scare Ollie a little more, Bruce added casually, "It doesn't look very thick, though, does it?"

And then he wandered off to pester somebody else.

Ollie stayed by the lake, searching his ward's face for any sign that the boy had overheard the unwitting admission.

* * *

**Yes, that Disneyworld comment was a reference to one of my previous fics. And yes, Dominoed Daredoll and Masked Maiden were actual terms used to describe Batgirl, and once again I've got the comic to prove it. Boy, those sixties comics sure were fun, weren't they?!**


	7. Spring Thaw

**_A Match Made In..._**

**Yes! We made it to the last chapter!! XD Now I only have the epilogue to post. It's really short, but I'm going to make you wait for it anyway. Muahaha...**

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Commissioner James Gordon of the Gotham City Police Department was having a very bad day. Two-Face had broken out of Arkham (though, happily, Batman had already recaptured him), Mr. Freeze had just taken two more captives who now had only twenty-five minutes to live before they froze to death inside their icy prison, and Bruce Wayne had been nagging him almost non-stop about when his ward would be freed. Not to mention the fact that he wasn't allowed to drink on the job. A little hard whiskey would go a long way about now.

And as if matters couldn't get worse, Oliver Queen seemed to be heading towards him that very moment. And he had _Bruce_ with him. Usually, the young billionaire was a good friend of Gordon's, but right now Gordon would like nothing better than for Freeze to come randomly charging out of the bushes and encase the man's head in ice until this whole thing was over.

As Bruce came to a stop beside him, Gordon held up a hand to forestall whatever idiotic question the man had thought up this time.

"I don't know anything, Bruce," the Commissioner informed him bluntly. "Now please, go sit down somewhere and try to relax. I promise to get word to you the minute we have any new information."

As luck would have it, that was the exact moment one of his sergeants came running up to him, yelling his name.

And he had a certain junior speedster with him.

"Kid Flash?" Gordon asked in confusion. He'd seen the Kid a few times before, but last time he checked, Mr. Freeze hadn't been anywhere _near_ Central City. "What brings you here?"

"Official business, sir!" the young red-head replied happily, saluting the Commissioner. "I came to file a police report!"

"…Report?"

"Yeah! Me and the Teen Titans just—OWW!!"

A sizable rock fell from the tree above them and onto Kid Flash.

Kid Flash scowled up at the tree in annoyance, only to be greeted by a similar scowl coming from the person hiding _in_ the aforementioned tree. And suddenly Kid Flash realized that that rock hadn't 'fallen' at all.

Aggravated, the boy was determined to go on as if nothing had happened.

"_Anyway_, me and the Teen Titans just—AGH!"

This time, an entire avalanche of snow was shaken from the tree branches and onto the Flash's sidekick. He very nearly fell over at the sudden impact.

Before any of the four men he was talking to could make inquiries or sarcastic remarks, Kid Flash glowered up at the tree and screamed at it, "ALRIGHT! Me and the Teen Titans AND BATGIRL just took care of Freeze and found the reagent!! You happy now?!"

The tree didn't respond, but Bruce Wayne sure did.

"What? How long ago?"

"'Bout five minutes or so, I guess."

"Where's the reagent now?" Ollie added.

"Wonder Girl has it, and she's already started defrosting the guys. Hope you don't mind…"

"_Mind?!_"

Gordon, the sergeant, Bruce and Ollie all made a mad dash for the lake, beating Kid Flash for about half a second before he realized what was happening and almost instantly caught up.

"How far along are they?" Gordon demanded. They were now only a few yards away from 'the spot'. Wonder Girl was dousing the rapidly-melting ice with the reagent as policemen, reporters and spectators watched from a safe distance. Aqualad was standing next to the Amazon, and he waved at Kid Flash as soon as he noticed him.

"I dunno," the Kid answered Gordon's question with a shrug. "It seems like things are moving along pretty quickly."

"Does she know what she's doing?" Bruce demanded, pointing at Wonder Girl.

"I guess so…"

"You _guess_ so!"

"Well, I'm sorry if we didn't have the time to flip through Freeze Guns for Dummies before coming out here to save your kids' lives."

"Yeah. Lighten up, Bruce," Ollie grumbled, elbowing the perturbed billionaire in the ribs. Bruce glared at the both of them and crossed his arms in irritation as the commissioner looked around in mild confusion.

"I don't see Robin or Speedy anywhere," Gordon commented. "I should think that Robin, at least, would be around somewhere…"

"I'm sure he is. Somewhere. You know how he's all secretive and stuff," Kid Flash smoothly replied without pause. "And Speedy's, um, got a bit of a cold at the moment…"

"Ah."

The four men (and Kid Flash) turned their attention back to Wonder Girl. The teenage princess was spraying the last of the curing reagent on what was left of the ice. Yet even as she finished up and the chemicals became nothing but a colorful puddle on the ground, neither Dick nor Roy moved a muscle.

Everyone waited for breathless seconds, waited to see if the reagent had worked or if two of the country's richest and youngest heirs were gone for good.

Bruce strained his eyes, trying to determine if either boy was moving.

Aqualad bit his lip nervously.

Wonder Girl, puzzled by the lack of reaction from her friends, slowly approached them and reached up to touch Roy's cheek.

Right before her trembling fingers made contact, Roy and Dick burst into hacking coughs.

Cameras flashed, people cheered, and paramedics rushed forward with blankets and oxygen masks for the now-shivering patients.

"Yay! They're alive!!" Kid Flash cheered, excitedly throwing his arms around the nearest person (which happened to be the unsuspecting and thoroughly shocked police sergeant) in a celebratory hug. Gordon, Wayne and Queen all ignored the speedster's jubilation and hurried forward to check on the two boys.

"Good work, Wonder Girl!" the commissioner exclaimed, heartily shaking hands with the beaming Amazon and the Atlantean standing beside her.

"Thank you, sir!" she happily replied.

Bruce and Ollie, meanwhile, had followed their boys to the ambulance that had been waiting for them not too far away. There were two paramedics currently on the scene—one was checking Roy over while the other was administering oxygen to Dick, who had yet to stop coughing for more than half a second. Bruce and Ollie stood close by but not close enough to get in the way.

"Do you think they'll be okay?" Ollie asked hesitantly.

"If they're anything like the other victims, they'll be back to normal in a few days."

"…Are… Are you _smiling?_"

"Does it _look_ like I'm smiling?"

"…Yeah…"

Bruce didn't bother answering that. The paramedic working on Dick had just waved him over, and he didn't want to wait any longer than was necessary to find out if his ward was truly okay.

As Bruce squatted beside the boy, Dick offered him a weak grin.

"Hey, Bruce, what took you so long?" he queried, his voice soft but strong.

"I've checked him over as thoroughly as I can here, Mr. Wayne," the paramedic explained as Bruce placed a hand on the back of Dick's neck. The boy was still wet and cold, despite the blanket now wrapped about him. "He seems to be fine, for the most part. His vitals are a bit slow, but that's to be expected. It would probably be wise to keep him at the hospital under observation until tonight, though. Just to be safe."

"Of course. I was hoping you'd suggest that."

"Aw, man…" Dick mumbled.

Concurrently, less than five feet away, Ollie was having a similar conversation with the paramedic who had examined Roy. And Roy was having a similar reaction to the idea of observation.

"I'm _fine_ now, Ollie. I don't need to go to—"

"I'll decide that, troublemaker. You're going to the hospital."

"I'll just go see if Tom is ready, then," the paramedic said, indicating his partner.

As soon as the two paramedics were busy talking, Ollie turned to Roy and said quietly, "Hey, kid, uh… just outta curiosity… what was it like being in that ice cube for so long?"

"_Cold_," Roy answered, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"Well, yeah, I figured that, but could you… you know… see or hear anything through there…?"

"I could see you alright—you were a little fuzzy, but not too bad. The ice kinda muffled your speech, though…"

Ollie let out a sigh of relief.

"Oh. _I _see…" the millionaire began, barely able to control his smile.

Roy smiled, too, and finished his sentence:

"…so it's a good thing Grayson taught me how to read lips, isn't it?"

The smile slipped off Ollie's face, which was now considerably paler than it had been before. Roy tried to keep his grin up, but it was kind of hard after seeing his guardian's reaction to that little revelation.

"Why are you so ashamed to admit that you like me? Am I that horrible?"

"No! I mean, you're not _that_ bad… you have your moments…"

"Please stop praising me. You're making me blush."

It took Ollie a moment or two to catch on to the sarcasm, but when he did, all he managed was a sheepish laugh. Roy just kind of rolled his eyes and smirked.

"I mean it, though," the man went on. "You… you're okay."

"How can you tell? You haven't spent one consecutive week at home since Christmas."

"Well don't worry, kid, you'n me will have plenty of catching-up time real soon."

"Really?" Roy asked, trying to sound skeptical but coming off as hopeful more than anything else.

"Of course," Ollie confirmed. "At the hospital."

Roy threw the oxygen mask at Ollie's head. Ollie laughed again, but the paramedic wasn't quite as happy.

"We're ready to go now, Mr. Queen," the paramedic informed them, carefully picking up the mask.

Roy reluctantly got to his feet. He glanced to his left and saw that Dick was also on his feet, clinging tightly to his blanket the same way Roy was. Then he looked back to make sure Ollie was still with him, only to discover that his guardian had moved away to make a phone call and that Wonder Girl had taken his place. Considering what Ollie had just said to him, this wasn't an entirely unwelcome change.

"Uh, hey…" Roy said uncertainly. Surely Donna could see that he was in civilian clothes and she was not? Why was she approaching him as if he was in his Speedy get-up?

"You're Roy Harper, right?" the raven-haired girl inquired.

"Yeah, that's right," Roy agreed, catching on quickly. Clearly Donna was up to something here… "I understand thank yous are in order—from what I've been told, you're the one who got us out of that icy tombstone over there."

The Amazon smiled at him and went on, "It was my pleasure, Mr. Harper. I just wanted to make sure you were alright and didn't need any further assistance."

"That's very considerate of you, Wonder Girl. But I think everything's okay now, thanks to you."

"I'm glad to hear it."

Donna's smile was wider than ever as she walked away. So was Roy's. Donna still liked him! Yahoo!

Now there was just the little matter of receiving payment from Wonder Boy—imagine! He was going to get the R-Cycle for ten days… the _R-Cycle!_ Speedy and Wonder Girl would be going out on the town _every night_ for the next ten days and—

POW!!

Dick's fist exploded in Roy's face, sending the red-head crashing to the ground in shocked (and pained) surprise.

Ollie, the paramedics, the civilians, the photographers and every other person within hearing distance turned to stare at them in shock.

And no one was more shocked than Roy Harper.

"Hey, what was that for?!" Roy demanded hotly.

"Don't play innocent with me! I saw the way you were looking at Wonder Girl just now!" Dick shot back, eyes blazing with anger.

"Huh? What's the matter with you?"

"You_ like_ her, don't you?! How could you _do_ something like this? After all we've been through!" Dick went on in an obnoxiously loud tone, making sure that everybody in the entire neighborhood could hear him. Roy considered getting to his feet, but with Dick currently either drunk or insane, he figured it was best to stay down and plead for his life.

"But she was just—"

"Well if that's the way you feel, then _go_ ask her out! See if I care!" Dick concluded in his best martyr voice. He gave Roy a quick kick in the ribs before crawling into the back of the ambulance…

…and switching on his comm link.

"Hey, Bruce? Good news. Roy and I have officially, er… 'called it quits'."

"_Not a moment too soon. I'll meet you at the hospital in a minute."_

_--_

Bruce clicked the comm link back off. He continued to stare off into the distance, not directly acknowledging the presence in the tree he was standing next to.

"You hear that?" Bruce said quietly.

The tree branches shook a little, as if in answer.

"Looks like that's the end of it, then."

There was a faint thump from high up in the tree.

"Trying to kill Wally was a bit excessive, though."

"Gotta get credit where credit's due, big guy," the tree replied.

_**The End**_

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**Ta-da! The end! El fin! Das Ende! Oh, you get the point. Epilogue will be up next week! In the meantime, feedback is always appreciated... **


	8. One Last Flurry

_**A Match Made In...**_

**Well, ladies and gentlemen, we have reached the end! Just this short epilogue and another story of mine is complete. Phew!**

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EPILOGUE_

The next morning, every gossip column in the country was reporting that Roy Harper and Dick Grayson had ended their relationship after only two weeks together. Not long afterwards, however, it was announced that Oliver Queen had told Bruce Wayne (and I quote) "I _care_" while at Gotham Central Park on Valentine's Day. Thankfully, Mr. Freeze and his men are still behind bars and can't do a thing about it.

Dick and Roy were allowed to complete their recuperations at their respective homes after a seven hour hospital stay. Their guardians were only able to keep them on bed rest for about two days before their wards' whining and complaining practically drove them nuts.

As soon as he was let out of bed, Roy was back in costume and on that R-Cycle, although Robin said he could only have it for six days, since he'd nearly ruined everything by forgetting to send the e-mails. Roy grudgingly agreed, but sadly, he only got to enjoy it for exactly fourteen minutes and thirty-five seconds before being pulled over by a cop and ticketed for going 120 miles per hour in a 35-mph zone. Robin immediately confiscated the bike upon discovering this, so Roy is now out twenty-five bucks and one motorcycle.

Donna has forgiven Roy for everything and their first date together is scheduled for next Friday at the local Taco Bell.

Iris West-Allen was not fooled at all by Barry's explanation concerning the kitchen—apparently, this had happened one too many times before—so Barry was condemned to spend the next few days fighting grease and food stains instead of criminals. Lucky for him, Wally took pity on him and agreed to help out as long as Barry agreed to keep buying cheesecakes.

Wally also managed to make amends with Barbara by promising to never open his mouth in her presence ever again.

The youtube video of Roy and Dick at the mall reached just over seven million hits before the account of the person who had posted the video—an Alexander Randall of Star City, California—was mysteriously hacked into and deleted. The kid's cell phone mysteriously disappeared as well.

About a week after the events at the park, a bouquet of flowers and a dinner invitation arrived for Kid Flash at the Titans' Tower from a certain police sergeant of the GCPD. Aqualad has yet to stop laughing.

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**This fic is now officially over. Please feel free to review and tell me how awesome I am now. (of course I'm kidding... well, mostly...)**


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